Blog: tracker's place

Baby spotless giraffe

Wednesday
August 24, 2023
12:45 AM


Prompt: A beautiful baby giraffe was born in a zoo in Tennessee. What's the big deal? She has no spots! She is all brown. Write about this in your Blog entry today

** Image ID #2303130 Unavailable **

When I saw the news report in my inbox this morning I wanted to pick up the phone and call my oldest sister to tell her about this rare giraffe born in Tennessee. I could not call unless there is a cell tower in heaven.

Connie loved giraffes. It was their long necks, she had told me once. She asked, "Can you imagine holding up a neck so long for your entire life?" She had the webcam links to most big zoos across the country. There had been a nationwide watch, in 2017, waiting for April, an expectant giraffe at a New York City zoo to give birth. Millions of people watched the live birth. People were paying attention to giraffes. Connie would follow up with her giraffes after the babies were born and eventually moved to a permanent home in another zoo. They all looked alike to me. Connie could look at one and tell you its name, its current location, and where it was born.

This rare giraffe is a big deal! The new calf is a reticulated giraffe, one of four giraffe species. According to an article in The Guardian, the zoo said that she might be the “only solid-colored reticulated giraffe living anywhere on the planet."

"The international coverage of our patternless baby giraffe has created a much-needed spotlight on giraffe conservation,” the founder of Brights zoo, Tony Bright, said to the local television news station WCYB. “Wild populations are silently slipping into extinction, with 40% of the wild giraffe population lost in just the last three decades.”

It is more than a big deal for me. It brings back fond memories of my big sister Connie.


tracker
"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" 

** Image ID #2303131 Unavailable **
Photo at Santa Barbara. CA zoo. Standing at the event area for her Celebration of Life in August 2021. There is a giraffe visible and the Pacific Ocean in the background.

** Image ID #2303142 Unavailable **
Connie 1943-2021